In This Together
by aKaTara
Summary: Four teens that know and hate and admire each other and their therapist with a tiny secret. Well, two. (Not exactly angst, but not exactly happy either.)


"You think I'm crazy."

Shiro shook his head. "Keith, I don't think you're crazy."

"I think you're just saying that because you have to."

"No one is making me say anything."

"Yes, someone is," Keith said, gesturing wildly. "Someone must control therapist behavior so you don't accidentally fuck us up more. You have to be all accepting and coolly detached because this is supposed to be a judgement-free zone, but there is no such thing, and I know you can't say it but _you think I'm crazy_."

Shiro shrugged. "No, I don't."

Keith groaned and slumped back against the chair. It was a very comfortable chair, somehow twice as cushiony as normal chairs were. Everything was more comfortable in therapy. It was like being inside a relaxation cassette, filled with blandly soothing potted plants and framed pictures of autumnal forests designed to calm you down, lower your defenses. The chair, with its beige patterns and fuzzy armrests, was practically a trap.

Keith sank into it and didn't let himself admit how good it felt.

"You really don't think I'm insane."

"Absolutely not."

"Okay, fine." Keith paused. "Now you think I'm being paranoid."

"Keith!" Shiro leaned forward and smiled. Shiro smiled in a gentle, caring way that would look completely disingenuous on anyone else. "There's no need to make assumptions, I truly don't think anything of you. You may think it sounds ridiculous, but this really is a judgement-free zone. I'm just here to understand you."

Keith sighed. It was hard to argue with someone when didn't even act like they were disagreeing with you.

Shiro leaned back and continued, "Why does it matter so much what I think of you, anyway?"

"Because I'm supposed to–to open up to you, reveal all my deepest darkest secrets, tell you things I don't even like telling myself. How can I do that if you won't even tell me how you really feel?"

"How I really feel?" Shiro cocked his head. "Okay. I think you're a talented young man who isn't afraid of confrontation but doesn't always think things through, I think you don't trust anything or anyone easily, which makes it difficult for you to form relationships with people, and I think that even though you assume you're better off alone, you really would be happier with a support system of friends who cared about you. Is that what you wanted?"

Keith's eyes widen. "That's not–I don't push people away, I just–" He crossed his arms and looked pointedly at the ceramic elephant perched on the bookcase. "Look, that's all still just more therapy stuff. Tell me something really true."

"Okay," Shiro said. "I think you have terrible fashion sense."

Keith laughed. It was, he realized, the first time he had done so for months. "What?"

"Come on, Keith. I know you've probably heard this a million times, but you have a mullet. And fingerless gloves? Those aren't still cool, are they? Besides, why wear gloves during the summer? Seems impractical to me."

Keith fought to keep the smile off his face. It wasn't working very well. "Summer's almost over anyway. School started a few weeks ago."

"Ah, yes, school." Shiro laid his hands on the armrest. Keith's eyes unconsciously flicked to his right hand, the prosthetic one. He still hadn't asked Shiro how he got it. He still wasn't sure if he should. "How's that going?"

Keith snorted and turned his eyes back to Shiro's face. Keith was a loner with fingerless gloves and trust issues. He didn't think Shiro really had to ask.

"So what am I, your client or your patient?"

"You're Pidge Gunderson. Do you need your laptop, by the way?" Shiro said, gesturing with his head towards the computer Pidge was hunched over.

"You're evading the question because it makes you uncomfortable," She answered without looking away from her screen. "And just because my mom said I have to be here, doesn't mean I can't use this time to do something actually useful."

"What would that be, exactly?"

"Not your business." Pidge hit the space key and her computer made a series of high-pitched beeping sounds. She hit the mute button. Really, the security system was practically archaic. "Besides, you're still trying to change the subject. Client or patient? Just curious as to whether you're fixing me for cash or out of a condescending sense of duty."

Shiro laughed. "You're very direct, aren't you?"

"You just changed the subject again. Don't think I don't notice," Pidge replied, annoyed yet still detached. "Don't think you can trick me like you trick all your other whatevers. I'm not going to just sit here and let you make me into what everyone wants me to be."

"I'm not trying to make you anything you're not. I already think you're an insightful, intelligent young woman. I'm just here if you need help."

"I bet you use that line on all the girls." Pidge said, voice dripping with sarcasm. She adjusted her glasses and added in a harsher tone, "For the record, I think this is pointless."

"That's fine. This is about your feelings, after all."

"My feelings. Right." Pidge slammed her laptop shut and looked up at Shiro for the first time, eyes narrowed. "There's nothing wrong with me, you know."

"Never said there was."

"You don't need to say it. You think I'm a rebellious teenage girl shutting away her feelings and secretly crying for help, and you're the hero who's going to turn me back into a happy, well-functioning member of society. But I hate to break it to you, that's not true. And don't answer that with another holier-than-thou quip about how I'm making assumptions," Pidge said, cutting Shiro off before he could say anything. "I know I'm right, and I don't want you to try to lie to me again."

Shiro closed his mouth and leaned back. Pidge crossed her arms and glared at him. They stayed like that for a few seconds, Shiro in contemplation, Pidge defiant.

Finally, Shiro broke the silence. "I'm sorry."

Pidge's eyes widened a fraction. "Wait, what?"

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way, even unintentionally. I know recently it's been hard for you, with your father and brother gone. And I'm sorry I made it worse for you."

For some reason, those simple words made Pidge want to cry.

Shiro meant well. She knew that. But all adults ever did was _mean well_. They meant well, but they did nothing, and they wanted to convince her to do nothing, too. Shiro was just a professional adult putting on an act–he went to school and got a PhD in the art of pretending to care, of getting people to give up and move on.

But Pidge was not going to let her father and brother go without a fight. And no matter what she had to do, she would do it without hesitation. Hack private systems, sneak into forbidden buildings, lie to anyone and everyone, and above all, resist every well-meaning person who tried to get in the way.

So Pidge didn't cry. Instead, she gritted her teeth and reopened her laptop, determined not to look up from it until the hour was over.

"Do you ever just feel like your mind could just buzz right out of your skull?"

Shiro considered Lance's words for a moment. "I'm not sure. Could you describe it in more detail?"

Lance bounced his leg up and down and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "I don't know, it's like, that feeling you get when everything is happening all at once, and you think maybe the universe is too big for you to exist in, and you can't stop thinking that any second you could just explode into a cloud of stardust?"

"Is this what you're anxiety feels like?"

"What? Oh. That. No, this feeling is more like, like a good thing. Like being a party with flashing lights and music that pounds on your skull until the world blurs."

"And so if that's not what anxiety feels like to you, than what does it feel like?"

"Huh." Now that he thinks about it, he isn't sure he'd describe it any differently. "I–I don't know. Um. Bad, I guess?"

"Could you elaborate on that?"

"Actually, can we talk about something else?" Lanced asked. "I know I shouldn't be running away from my problems or whatever, but–"

"It's alright, Lance," Shiro said reassuringly. "We can talk about something else. What's on your mind?"

Lance perked up, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject. "Well, school started recently. And obviously, high school sucks, but I love beginnings, so it turned out to be a pretty great day. I talked to all my old friends–well, they're not really my friends, I just sort of know them, I don't actually have any friends–"

Lance hesitated for a second and winced. There wasn't any reason to let that little fact drop. Shiro opened his mouth to say something, but Lance bulldozed over him, determined to keep the conversation in his comfort zone.

"And I did all the other first-day-of-school traditions, too, obviously, I got my locker assignment, ate some shitty cafeteria food, got all my class syllabuses. Or syllabi? I think can be both. Oh, and Keith was there, turns out he didn't drop out after all–"

"Wait." Shiro stopped him, confused. "Keith?"

Lance blinked. "Yeah, Keith Kogane. Why?"

Shiro coughed. "Nothing. I just thought I'd heard of him before."

"You probably have. He's in my art class, and he's pretty much the next Da Vinci. He's won a ton of awards and shit." Lance managed to say this with only a trace of bitterness, a feat that he was fairly proud of.

"Has he, now? I had no idea," Shiro asked, eyebrows furrowed. Lance couldn't read the emotion in Shiro's face. He didn't really try to figure it out, though. Talking about Keith always sort of distracted him.

"Yeah, he's not the kind of person you'd peg as an art type. I think he's just using his drawings to distract us from the fact that he's secretly the leader of a gang of biker ninjas. I bet you read about him in a newspaper article or something, every local paper is always trying to get interviews with him." Lance smirked. "Can't imagine what those interviewers go through, trying to get full answers out of that guy."

"Sounds like you don't really like him."

"Don't like him? That's an understatement," Lance said, rolling his eyes. He's pretty sure he's ranted about Keith to anyone who would listen, even a few animals and inanimate objects, but that didn't mean he ever got sick of it. "Just–think teenage vampire. Picture a typical Byronic hero and add a mullet. He doesn't care what anyone thinks of him."

Lance paused for a moment to imagine that, a teenager who didn't care what anyone thought of him. Lance would never admit to being jealous of Keith, not in a million years, but–

He shakes his head and goes on.

"Well, anyway, Keith Kogane thinks he's better than everyone else, and he's my sworn rival. He's always brooding in a corner glaring at everybody like they've all personally wronged him, he's never smiled once, and any time someone tries to talk to him he brushes them off like they're dirt. He's basically the human embodiment of Hot Topic. Which, to clarify, is a really bad thing."

Shiro gives Lance a look that makes him squirm. It's not an expression of disapproval, but disappointment. Lance was pretty sure if he had a dad, he would have given him the exact same look as Shiro was giving him now. Then again, Shiro would be a way different dad than the guy who gave Lance his DNA and then packed his bags. Lance didn't really know what that guy would do.

"Don't you think you might be being a little unfair to Keith?" Shiro said.

"Never. If I'm sure of anything in this world, it's that Iron Man is the best Avenger, pineapple pizza was a mistake, and Keith is the absolute _worst_." Lance snorted. "God, I can't believe I ever–"

Lance froze.

"What is it?" Shiro prompted.

"Nothing, I just realized that we've gone way over time. Sorry, I've talked for way too long, I'll show myself out."

"It's fine, you can stay longer if you need to," Shiro said, concerned.

"No, I've already taken up way too much up your time," Lance assured him. "See you next week then?"

"I suppose," Shiro replied with more of that dad-like disappointment, but Lance was already out the door.

"What–what makes me sad?"

"Yes. Situations, thoughts, people, anything."

"I–I don't know." Hunk stuttered. "I mean, I'm not really sad ninety percent of the time."

"What makes you sad in that ten percent, then?"

"Um." Hunk stared at Shiro. "I guess, logically, there must be something, right?"

"That is correct."

"And all I have to do is identify it."

"True."

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

"I'm sorry, but I really _don't know_ ," Hunk groaned.

Hunk really thought therapy would be easy. He would tell Shiro his problem, Shiro would tell him exactly how to fix it, and all Hunk would have to do was dutifully follow his instructions. But it was feeling more and more like a test he hadn't studied for, an endless series of questions that he didn't have a clue how to answer.

All of Shiro's questions were so _vague_. How Hunk would define himself, how often he felt grounded in reality, whether he had a sense of community. There were so many factors to consider, so many variables to synthesize, and what if Hunk got his feelings wrong? Hunk never knew why anything was, he just knew that it was.

He knew feelings were complicated, obviously feelings were complicated. But he didn't know this would be so hopeless. He didn't feel like he was changing. Of course he wouldn't change in a day, but he thought at least he would be–different.

Reality was so difficult and complicated and messy that sometimes Hunk felt as if he couldn't breathe.

"I'm really not sad most of the time," Hunk found himself repeating. "I'm not a sad person."

"Not everybody who comes through these doors is a sad person. But you don't need to be a sad person to get help. Would you agree?"

"I guess," Hunk said. He didn't really think about it, but if Shiro said it, it must be true. He was a professional, after all.

There was another pause. Hunk never knew what to do with himself in those awkward pauses. He wasn't sure if he was doing something wrong or if they were just inevitable. Respectful moments of silence for the death of a conversation.

"So do you have your answer yet?" Shiro asked.

Hunk cleared his throat. "I, uh, kind of forgot the question."

"Identifying things that make you sad," Shiro reminded him gently.

"Things that–oh God." Hunk buried his face in his hands. They had just gone in a complete circle, and Hunk still had no idea what to answer. "Oh God, I'm an idiot."

"Hunk, you're not an idiot." Shiro didn't even sound like he was trying to comfort him, more like he was trying to assert an obvious fact. "You have more strengths than many of your peers. You're naturally kind, you're incredibly strong, and–well, your moms told me you're an engineering genius."

Hunk blushed. "I'm not a genius. I'm not even the smartest kid in my science class, really."

"Who else is there?"

"Well, there's Pidge–she doesn't usually pay attention in class but she knows everything, basically–and there's Keith, who does way better on tests than both of us…" Hunk trailed off after noticing Shiro's expression. It wasn't necessarily bad, it was just different from before. Shifted. "Um, are you–are alright?"

"Huh." Shiro said, looking a little lost.

Hunk stared at him. He wondered if he did something wrong, said something stupid or unintentionally cruel. He squirmed in his seat and waited for a response.

"Huh." Shiro said again.

"I'm sorry," Hunk blurted.

That seemed to snap Shiro out of it. Unsurprisingly, Shiro hated unnecessary apologies.

"No, I'm sorry, Hunk, I didn't mean to do that. I'm just surprised by what you've told me."

"Okay," Hunk answered cautiously. He suspected that wasn't the whole story, but he wasn't willing to push for it.

Shiro's gaze focused again and he smiled apologetically, clasping his hands together. Hunk's eyes trailed to his prosthetic hand and noticed Shiro didn't fold his hands together normally. His left hand curled around his right like he was grabbing it, like it was an object rather than a part of himself.

Hunk couldn't help it. He may not have been the smartest kid in his class, but he was still a scientist, and his curiosity overrode his discomfort.

"Hey, so...how did you get your arm? Your, uh, right arm?"

As soon as he said it, Hunk regretted it, mind swirling with worries ( _I didn't ask it sensitively enough, he's probably sick of people asking about his arm, it could be a painful subject),_ but Shiro didn't seem to mind.

"Ah, this?" Shiro wriggled his fingers with a smile, but his eyes seemed to dim. "My old job sent to a pretty dangerous part of the world. Didn't end up making it out with both limbs intact."

"Oh." Hunk didn't know what he was expecting, but he wasn't prepared for such a grim truth. "I–Wow. That sucks. That really sucks. I–man, I'm sorry for asking."

Shiro shrugs, pulling at his sleeve absentmindedly. "I don't mind. I've come to terms with it."

Hunk knew that definitely wasn't true. That subconscious fiddling with his sleeve–that move was too significant to be discounted. As someone who spent a lot of time trying to hide his own arms for–reasons, Hunk knew Shiro was hiding something.

Still, Hunk was Hunk, and he didn't push.

"Okay," Hunk said.

"Allura, they all know each other. And I suspect to some degree they're all jealous of each other. And to another degree, they all deeply admire and want to be each other."

She laughed, covering her mouth with a perfectly manicured hand. "This is quite a shift from our usual subject."

Shiro ran his left hand through his hair and gesticulated wildly with his left. "I'm just kind of astounded by the odds. If it wasn't for patient confidentiality, and, well, basic respect for privacy, I could...well, I could do something about this. Tell them about each other."

"It's not your job to solve everything."

"It's my job to solve _something_ , I'm their _therapist_ ," Shiro responded.

"Exactly. You're a therapist, not the defender of the universe. You're here to help your patients, not save them."

"Patients. Huh." Shiro thought back to Pidge's interrogation. "One of my kids was asking about that, whether therapists used _patient_ or _client_. I wonder if she realizes how hotly debated that is within the community or if she stumbled upon the question herself. I wouldn't put it past her. She's a smart girl, all four of them are. Smart, that is, not girls."

"Usually you're not so interested in talking about your own patients. And certainly you don't usually talk about them as if you're a schoolgirl delivering gossip."

It was true. He didn't talk about his kids that often, even anonymously, except to ask Allura for advice. It felt like a violation of trust to spill their secrets, even to another person who would never tell. Although, not telling them that their therapist also needed a therapist could also be considered a violation of trust.

It wasn't totally uncommon for a therapist to have a therapist, and it wasn't like once Shiro got a degree in psychology he suddenly got his life together. And his life was far from being together, even before Kerberos. But he could still help people. He still _wanted_ to help people.

He knew a lot of his kids wouldn't accept that logic. Shiro's mind drifted back to Pidge and Keith and how unwilling they were to trust him. He had no idea how they'd react if he made the waters even murkier, if he gave them a justification for that distrust. And Hunk and Lance, who had seemed to willing to open up to him–what would they say if they knew how cracked Shiro was beneath the calm surface?

It didn't really matter, though, what they would hypothetically do. It wasn't about Shiro, it was about them, and for them, Shiro could maintain composure as long as he had to.

Then again, Hunk had come pretty close, and if he was going to see these kids every week–

He grabbed his right hand and took a deep breath.

"Well, enough of that, I'm sorry," he said, with a weak smile. "Should we get started?"

"If you're ready." Allura returned his smile with one of her own. Despite being a therapist himself, despite the fact that he had probably smiled like that thousands of times, he still wasn't sure he could totally read it.

"So, Shiro, are you ready today?"

Shiro nodded. "I'm ready."


End file.
